


A Monologue About Den-Den Mushi, by One Who Doesn’t Know Much About Anything, But Would Dearly Like to

by Indefinite_article



Series: Snail AU [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: ? - Freeform, Building what a character knows about the world, Den Den Mushi - Freeform, Den Den Mushi Culture, Gen, Kinda, Monologue, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28794726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indefinite_article/pseuds/Indefinite_article
Summary: There is a cabin in the woods in the middle of a snowstorm. There are also two beings who are having a rearrangement of priorities, of the sort that happens when a young adult starts to grow up."What must it be like, then, to have the length of the world available to you? Do you have it? Is it a matter of asking or of being given? A matter that would be more clear, more simple if anyone told you what it was? If anyone knew?"
Series: Snail AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122140





	A Monologue About Den-Den Mushi, by One Who Doesn’t Know Much About Anything, But Would Dearly Like to

**Author's Note:**

> My first posted work! Terrifying!

The door clicked shut, silencing the blast of cold air from the storm outside, leaving only the warm crackle of the fire to fill the silence. The warm crackle of the fire, and soft, slippered, footsteps padding their way to the old armchair, followed by the creak of the springs and a sigh.

“It’s a strange world we live in, isn’t it? A world that seems so small, just those you know and those they know and maybe the ones they know too but not much more. Not much more than the knowledge, the faint awareness of something outside. Even when the outside comes knocking it seems more like it’s just appeared, blown in like the snow from the mountaintops with no thought spared to the water it came from. 

What must it be like, then, to have the length of the world available to you? Do you have it? Is it a matter of asking or of being given? A matter that would be more clear, more simple if anyone told you what it was? If anyone knew?

Or maybe I’m just ignorant. Maybe it’s always been quite obvious to you, from the moment of your birth. Or from the moment of your taming? No one’s ever quite clear on what that apparatus does, how it works, why it’s so necessary. Is it necessary? Does anyone know? I suppose you would. I find myself asking that question quite a lot, though no one’s asked it to me. Have I ever asked it to anyone? Or have I just kept it in my head? 

But I digress, if I ever had a point in the first place. I guess I’ll just have to make one. Your kind, they’re sometimes found in the wild, are they native? Were they imported? They always seem to thrive in whatever habitat they end up in. As much as your aversion to the cold is well-documented, it seems that, with the wide degree of breed specialisation, at least one would end up with resistance to the cold. Maybe there is one, the ones that the mermaids use perhaps, maybe it’s just never been documented. Very little has been, it always seems. Or maybe the documents were lost. 

Maybe they were in Ohara. What did those that broadcast that fateful call think of it? Was it just another message, another set of words to repeat and send back? Or were they in a role more similar to many of the marines sent there, performing a duty out of fear of what would happen if they broke ranks? Surely, somewhere along the chain, it wouldn’t be that farfetched to see an issue, a small glitch, a misdialing, a few words lost in transit? Is that what happened? Is that how the Devil Child escaped? 

What would be the consequences for such an action? Every so often you do hear about a wrong number, an imperfect transmission, a call failed entirely. It is strange that a species intelligent enough to understand who is speaking to it, to know which defining features to imitate, to learn human emotions well enough to express their own in coherent ways would make such a simple mistake. Is it a matter of knowing versus learning? Or a matter of _knowing_ versus learning?

What must it be like, to live in a society so connected? Where things like physical distance don’t matter? Where you could always speak to _someone_ as long as they were open to it too? What problems that must solve! For an explanation to always be in reach, for a correction to be there too! So much is hurt or lost through ignorance, what a world it must be, for learning to be at your fingertips!”

“A poor one” a voice snapped out, filled with frustration and anger. “ A very poor one indeed, for then ignorance is not a flaw, not a mistake but a _choice_. And those that choose to learn feel the most terrible things that have happened as if it happened to them and wish they had chosen ignorance.”

There would have been a profound silence after that, had all not been filled by the warm crackle of the fire. The warm crackle of the fire, and the creak of the springs of the old armchair as the inhabitant sat up, sat up to listen to one who was, finally, willing to speak.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! And that my personal frustration on the state of our world didn't get in the way too much. I'm doing my best to leave our world as a source of dramatic irony and nothing more. This is about One Piece, promise!  
> Some notes about the cold thing:  
> Den Den Mushi are cold-blooded, so are bad with freezing temperatures but as long as they warm up later should be fine, so ones that are in the ocean (which rarely reaches freezing) and being used by presumably warm-blooded mermaids ought to be okay. All this character has been told is the conventional wisdom of 'don't leave them in cold places', without any specifics so they don't know.  
> Please feel free to comment, I'd really like some feedback, and let me know if you have any opinions of the way I should take this AU thing.


End file.
